Puzzle
by hazakaza
Summary: Lily Evans is happy, twenty-five and protected from the dark world by her best friend.  But she can't remember anything from Christmas 1979 through Christmas 1981, and two names she doesn't know have come back to her . . . Harry and James. AU Darkfic
1. Prologue

Lily feels like a half-finished puzzle.

Some days she tries to put the parts she's got together. Some days, she almost feels like she's got it, she's found all the missing pieces, and she's ready to find the places they go in, but they never quite fit. It's never long before she loses them again, before something breaks her concentration and it's all lost, all so many little meaningless words that don't fit or connect anywhere.

She clings to what she has anyway. The last time she thought she remembered something important, it was just a name, but it seemed the most important name she had ever heard, it seemed so important, like someone had screamed it three streets away and the wind had carried it here. She stole a scrap of parchment and a quill and wrote it down. She hadn't held a quill in so long that it shook, and her handwriting was large and messy, like a child's. It was just five letters:

_Harry._

And then, later, when she remembered something else, another five letters, strung together, it seems, almost by chance:

_James._

Most of the time they don't mean anything. But sometimes, when she is alone in her room-no matter how full of flowers it is, no matter how beautiful and constantly in bloom they are-she pulls the bit of parchment out from the slit in the seam of her dress and reads the names. Mouths them. Memorizes them. And something tugs deep down inside her, and she finds her face wet, and she knows that she has done something wrong, something very bad and wrong, but she can't remember what. She rolls up the parchment tight and hides it in the lining of her shoes, to be discovered again and again and memorized again and again, and-

There are footsteps. He's coming. She scrubs her face and sleeve on her robes and tries to look bright and cheerful-he hates to see her sad-and she finishes the bouquet she is arranging on the dining room table.

The front door opens. It is storming outside, and the wind is ghastly. "Lily?"

"In here," she says. The cold air is already creeping around her bare feet, but she hears the door shut and lock, and footsteps. He fills the doorway like a spider fills a corner, suddenly, almost all web and no weight to him, shaking snow from his cloak. He pushes his hood back and shrugs the thing off. She takes it from him. Snowflakes melt into her palms like the tiniest, newest ocean.

His hand on her shoulder is cold from outside, and it's shocking that anyone can feel so cold and still be alive. It makes her start. But he's her best friend, she chides herself, and he's so gentle with her, and he takes care of her ever since-

His lips are so cold on her forehead that she might be being kissed by a corpse. But it feels good to have him home.

_Home. _Harry. James. Like thinking in another language, one she learned as a child and hadn't spoken in years.

She shakes her head again, and smiles up brightly. "How was your day, Sev?"


	2. Chapter 1: The First Piece

After dinner, someone arrives. When someone else is there, she has to act the servant. "I'm sorry," he always says, before and after, and she smiles up at him, and he seems to take that as acceptance of his apology enough. She puts on a clean white apron and folds her hands and keeps her eyes on the floor.

The guest steps out of the hearth, shaking soot off, followed by a huge black dog.

"Regulus," Severus says, and suddenly his spine is straight and his eyes are unreadable, and he looks terrifying, tall and angular, more architecture than man, a far removed from the skinny mismatched boy she met on the playground as anyone could be, and playing the cowed slave isn't so hard as it might have been.

Lily thinks about the playground. Petunia. Whatever happened to Petunia?

The guest looks around. "Settling into the new house nicely, I see."

She takes the sooty cloak as he shucks it off and hangs it, brushing it off as she moves. It's so soft she wants to keep touching it, but she knows she shouldn't. She moves toward the kitchen to make tea for them both.

The dog's eyes follow her across the room. She feels it, the animal's focus hot as blazing hearth.

"Ah. It likes the mudblood," Regulus observes, amused. "Like attracted to like, I suppose. Go on, then."

She doesn't look at Severus' face, but out of the corner of her eyes, she sees his hand tighten white around the doorknob for just an instant, and then relax. Regulus pats the dog and looks up at her, his expression colder than it was for the animal. "Feed him something."

Lily doesn't meet his eyes but nods, curtsies, and leaves, and the dog follows, as if it understands. She can hear the clicking of the dog's claws behind her and knows it is watching her, watching her bare feet on the cold stone steps (slaves aren't allowed shoes, of course, no matter how cold the house is), watching her descend.

She enters the kitchen and turns on the light. The house has electricity; thank Severus for that as well, because keeping a house this big and empty without a wand or electricity is abominably difficult. She turns to the sitting dog.

She remembers being Head Girl, giving orders to First Years. The memory puffs her full of breath. "Stay."

It tilts its head. It's eyes are huge and golden and a little sad, but it sits and doesn't move.

She turns her back and puts the kettle on, and goes to the icechest-another thing to thank Severus for-and searches for a plate of leftover roast beef. She closes the door and reaches for a carving knife-

A filthy hand-almost a claw-closes around her upper arm, and the plate clatters loudly to the floor. Another hand claps across her mouth before she can scream. The dog is gone, and the man before her is filthy, wearing clothes at least ten years old, and he's whispering something-she bites his hand and squirms, she tastes his coppery blood, but he doesn't budge, his teeth are bared, and his eyes are golden hazel and fixed on hers, and she tries to struggle and scream but he is stronger-and finally he realizes his hoarse whisper is making her name-

"Lily! Lily, it's me-it's Sirius-it's me, Lily, it's me!"

She stops struggling for a moment and his grip relaxes. She tries again to wrench herself free and make a mad dash for the door but he catches her with both hands, shoulder and hair, and swings her around into the counter, pressing her there like a lover, pinning her arms.

"Stop it, Lily, stop it, please, I don't want to hurt you, it's just me-"

"Get your hands off me!" she hisses. "I don't know how you treat servants in your home but Severus will be very angry if he finds out you're manhandling me."

"What has he done to you?" The horror in his eyes gives her pause.

The kettle is whistling a low, low song, but he won't let her go. "What has _who_ done to me?" 

"Snape," he spits, as if its a curse. 

"I'll ask you not to speak of him like that," she says stiffly, and wrenches her shoulder free. The kettle is screaming now, but she doesn't move to touch it. "Didn't I go to school with you? Aren't you one of the Blacks?"

"I'm-" He pushes his shaggy hair out of his face, rolling his eyes wildly, casting about for something in her face, some recognition, anything. "Merlin's beard, Lily, I was the best man at your wedding."

"I've never been married."

The transformation from exasperation to defeat, watching this man deflate, is satisfying, but also disturbing. "Yes," he snaps. "You have."

"I think I would remember that."

"It was-before. Before the war." His eyes narrowed. "Before you-know-who took over." He searches her face hungrily, but seems to come up empty.

She finds the courage she's been trying to pull up around her middle, and turns her back on him and pours the tea into the teapot, setting out the teacups and cream on a tray.

"You don't remember any of it, do you?"

She takes out a polishing cloth and gives two of the teaspoons a quick buffing, and then places them next to the saucers.

"Please try to remember." There's a begging note in his voice now, and she wishes desperately that she had the ability to detect a lie like Severus has.

"Severus has been my best friend since-since before I went to Hogwarts. He protects me. I get a bit-off, sometimes. Since the accident."

The man makes a sound of disbelief. "Accident. Is that what the prat calls it? When he kidnapped you from your home just before the Dark Lord-"

She's not sure how the knife got into her hand, but she whirls on the man and presses it close, between his ribs. "Give me a reason, dog."

His eyes are huge, his hands up, helpless. His voice comes fast and low. "Lily, I know how they treat-how they treat muggle-borns. I can get you out of here. I can keep you safe from him. We've got safe-houses, places you can stay and never see him again-"

She digs the point of the carving knife closer. "Why would I betray Severus like that?"

"Because he's the reason!" the man hisses. He looks mad, for a moment, demented with grief and hatred. "Because he's the reason James and Harry are dead!"

She doesn't drop the knife, but she pulls it away from his ribs.

"You remember, don't you? James and Harry?" 

"They're just names." She closes her eyes and moves her head slowly, side to side, trying to shake them loose.

"They're your husband. Your son."

"I've never been married," Lily says, but it tastes like a lie now. "They're just names that rattle around-" 

But Sirius is looking up to the door. "They'll want their tea, I expect. Listen." She opens her mouth again, but he grabs her wrists, twisting the knife past his face, and leans closer, speaking low and fast. "No. Just listen. You still remember how to do magic, right?"

"Of course I do," she snarls.

"Good. Reg and I are working together, trying to bring things down from the inside. Snape is the lynchpin-if we can get him under the Imperius curse, or feed him some Veritaserum, we might really get somewhere. You need to take his wand from him, either get him under control or knock him out or-anything. When you do, Floo us, ask for Padfoot, we can take it from there."

"Take his-why?"

Sirius rolls his eyes again. "Because you think he'll just submit to the Curse, do you? Or that he cares about the plight of muggleborns and muggles?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You having to play servant!" he hisses frantically. "Maybe Snape even treats you all right, maybe, but do you know what goes on out there, to the other muggleborns? Have you even left the house in the last five years?"

"Not really. It's not safe."

Sirius is shocked enough to let go of her, and she puts the knife down on the counter, next to the tray. Its tip is red.

"Muggleborns are slaves for high-ranking Death Eaters. Muggles are being killed like cattle. All across Europe. Beauxbatons still stands, but Durmstrang has fallen, and so has Hogwarts."

Lily shakes her head. "Severus keeps me safe." 

Sirius takes a step back and regards her coldly. "And how do you pay for that safety, then."

Lily does not understand, or maybe she doesn't want to. "Pay for-"

"Maybe you didn't notice how he was after you ditched him at the end of fifth year, but I did. Stared after you. Watched you all the time." Sirius is savage, leaning close, his breath hot and awful on her. "I know what he wanted. Don't think for an instant he's keeping you safe out of the goodness of his _heart_. If he hasn't done it yet, I imagine it's only to wait for you to come to him of your own accord. To really _win_ you from James. Or maybe-maybe he's already done it, and you just can't remember."

She almost picks up the knife again as she realizes what he's implying. "Never," she hisses. "He would never-"

"You're already under one memory charm. What's another?" Sirius says loftily, moving to the door.

"You're wrong." But it sours in her mouth, and her gut twists, and she looks away. The sugar bowl trembles in her fingers, and when she looks back up, Sirius is regarding her with large, golden, canine eyes. He snatches up a few bits of fallen roast and gulps them down off the floor, and she lifts the tea tray. It's heavier than it's ever been. The teacups rattle in their saucers. It sounds like a hailstorm. She puts it back down. She takes a deep breath. Clenches her fists, her teeth. Her cheeks are wet again. She hates this feeling, like she's a rock skipping across her own memories instead of sinking into them.

When she picks up the tea tray again, it doesn't shake at all. The dog follows her out.


	3. Chapter 2: Nightshade

The next day, he is in his laboratory. He makes a frustrated sound, and she touches his shoulder. He starts.

"I could help," she offers.

"You know I can't let you." He rubs his temples for a moment, and Lily is struck by how drawn he looks, how old. His birthday is coming; he will be twenty-six, but he looks as if he's been left out in the rain, weathered like wood at sea, older than his years. The light catches a single silver strand-like a memory-in his lank, dark hair as it falls around his face.

"Why is this so important?"

His mouth twists ruefully. "The Dark Lord asks this task of me personally."

"What is it?"

He moves his hand across his brow as if he wishes to wipe it clean or even, to smooth out the wrinkles of worry forming there. "Please don't concern yourself."

But Lily is reading the parchment over his shoulder. "It looks like a potion to make the victim vomit. Specifically, something of a nightshade strain-but you've made changes, of course."

Severus purses his lips. "You're too clever for your own good."

"For my own good," she repeats back to him, mugging for him, a smile stretching her mouth wide. "Who are we making sick up their lunch into the china today? The Dark Lord suddenly developed a taste for pranks?"

He looks up at her, and something almost like a smile crinkles at the corners of his eyes, but it's gone as soon as it passes over him. "Beauxbatons," he says, and his eyes won't meet hers. "They draw their water from an underground river that in turn draws from this river." He traces a thin blue line on a map before him. "But it must be able to get through undetected by any of the protective enchantments."

She is perfectly still. She focuses on breathing. Her thumb strokes the inside of her left ring finger. "It's not just going to make them ill, is it."

His face hardens. "It is none of your concern."

"There are children in that school, Severus. Eleven year old boys and girls."

"I know." The defeat in his voice rings like a knell. He rubs his knuckles in his eye sockets, and stands. "You shouldn't be in here."

She looks down at the notebook again, and he snaps it shut. He spreads his hand on the cover of it, as if to hide it, and she watches him straighten, draw himself up.

She walks to the door and opens it, but thinks better of it. "Based on the charms you had listed, it should work." Lily doesn't mean it as cruel as it comes out, but there's an edge there, just the same.

His face may as well be a tombstone for all it tells her. "I know."

She thinks again of being Head Girl. How strangely hazy the memory is, in parts, like a television with the volume turned way down. But she remembers shepherding First Years. She remembers how they looked at her, with huge, hopeful eyes. How they might drink down water with the trust born of having never worried about death and how quickly it might come for them.

She shuts the door to the laboratory and drums out the names, quickly, together, on her elbows as she walks. One finger for each letter. Harry. James. Harry. James. Harry and James.

She hardens her heart, like she has before, against him. He would charm her flowers and poison children. She must act.


	4. Chapter 3: The Plan

_Get his wand._

Sirius' words hang with her in the air like fairy lights over her bed. She taps out the letters of each name-_Harry_ on the right and _James_ on the left-into her thighs, her ribs. She taps the _e_ of James so often she feels something, some sign, some searing emptiness _must_ appear on her left ring finger. There must be some better way to find the truth than betrayal. She strokes the inside of her left ring finger with her thumb, as if to turn some invisible ring.

But if what Sirius said is true-it痴 not coming. There will be no sign. It will just go on as it has if she does not change things. And the dog knew the names. He knew them like they were written out on her fingertips already, as if the ring were there.

And there was the other accusation, the one that is keeping her from sleep.

Severus doesn't talk much about what things were like outside of the house. But the way others-Mulciber and Yaxley and others-leer at her tells her what mudbloods are good for. That the helplessness of a muggle woman might be nothing compared to the impotence of being capable of fighting back, of being capable of magic and yet denied the means. She knows what they think Severus uses her for. Getting her to play house-elf is just a perk, something to keep her busy while he is away.

She has to get up. Lying here thinking will make her mad. She stands, turns on the lights. Though the room lacks windows-another safety measure-there are flowers everywhere. Morning glories scale the bedpost with their throats turned to an unseen sun. Snapdragons line the corners. Honeysuckle dangles heavy tendrils from the corners and ceiling. It's an intricate bit of charm work. She knows Severus did it himself-and that there are other curses around the door, curses that will only let them through, dissillusionment charms to hide its location, glamours to make it look like a dark, bare cell. He has gone to such lengths to protect her. No, that's not quite true. She plucks a morning glory bloom from the vine as she sits up and crumples it in her fist. He's gone to these lengths to _keep _her. Like a bird in a bell-jar.

She sits at a desk and brushes her hair. There are no mirrors in her room. She wonders why. Perhaps so she doesn't see the spoils of war staring back at her.

There are two problems. Firstly, a memory charm strong enough to block all that is probably too strong to break and leave her whole. Simply breaking it is not quite an option.

The other problem is, Severus doesn稚 ever let his wand go. He keeps it up his sleeve or in an inside pocket of his cloak, and she doubts her ability to sneak into his bedroom and steal it while he sleeps without him waking. He probably places protective spells, she thinks darkly. There's no way it could be so simple. No, she will have to get his guard down.

Lily sits through the night and makes a plan. It's uncomplicated. It answers each question without a shadow of a doubt. She must simply do it.

This, she thinks when dawn finally comes, this is not the hard part. The hard part will be what comes after.


	5. Chapter 4: The Plan Enacted, and Answers

_a/n: This is a long one._

It is almost as if he's expecting her. He has shucked off his robe and the cuffs of his dress shirt are unbuttoned and rolled up. She decided, after some thought, on borrowing his dressing gown-the black one with the snake around the sash. The material makes her feel like she's already completely nude, and she resists the urge to cover herself. Something of what she is feeling must be showing in her face, because he watches her for a long moment before he speaks.

"What's wrong?"

She opens her mouth, but what is there to say? She moves to him, eyes fixed on his, solemn. This is the plan. It must be followed. The only way to catch him with his guard down is to give him what he wants. She knows what he really wants, now.

She puts both her hands on his chest. He's warm, almost flushed, and her hands move up, over his skin to his narrow shoulders.

"Lily-what's wrong?"

It almost makes her stop. It almost makes her want to apologize. There is such concern there. But she taps each finger on each hand out onto his shoulders, tapping each name into his skin like a question she can't ask yet.

She folds herself into his chest, hanging her hands from his shoulder and tucking her face beneath his chin, and she can hear his heart pick up its pace, like a tiny drum inside of his chest, beating out her name. How stupid she is, to have not heard it before, to have stood so close to him and not hear this tremendous sound.

His hands settle, carefully, lightly, on her back. His wand is on the table next to his bed. She could just lunge for it-but no, one failed attempt and all would be lost. Better to be sure. But she wonders, for just a split second, if she is telling herself that. Days upon days of cleaning and moving and constant housework-and dodging cursed artifacts-have kept her strong and nimble. And he's so skinny. Her fingers slide down his back. He's always been slim, but not like this. She might even best him. It doesn't matter. She loves him-she is his best friend-and her heart aches with how long it has been since she has been held like this, by someone who loves her. She can't remember how long it's been.

No, she thinks, her brow drawing together again. She can't remember. That's the problem.

But when he asks for the third time, murmuring the words into her hair, she knows this is an impasse, that she-the plan-cannot move forward without answering this question, and that she is so stupid, she has nothing prepared for this. She had simply thought of him as another enemy and dragging him here would take no convincing at all, just the offering up of blatant opportunity, but no-he's not just an enemy. He's not Macnair or Rosier. It's Severus, and despite what she doesn't know-despite how her memories get fuzzy starting around her seventh year of Hogwarts and only get fuzzier until Christmas of 1981-she knows that Severus could never just accept gift that came to him for no reason, no matter how badly he wanted it. Severus always looked for what it would cost him. Always.

Lily can't think of anything to say, and he uses his hand to push her shoulders up and away from him, and her hands are wrapped around herself, and she knows he'll know if she lies. Whether through magic or simply knowing her face, he will know. She must come close enough to the truth. Her mouth opens. She is not sure what will come out until it does.

"I've been so blind for so long."

She shakes her head, and pushes away the hair that falls in her face. She feels the grip on her shoulders slacken, and she steps back toward him and lifts her mouth like a sacrifice. Her lips brush his cheek. It is not quite a kiss, but it is an invitation. He smells faintly of turpentine. Even though he knows that she doesn't mind scouring his cauldrons, and she doesn't have anything else to do all day, he still scours most of them himself-and what must he have been brewing, to require turpentine-she remembers suddenly, vividly, the day in her seventh year, before the N.E.W.T.s, when they both got stuck tutoring O.W.L. students thanks to an oblivious Slughorn, how they had scoured their cauldrons in horrible, spiralling silence-she thinks of Beauxbatons, and wonders what else he's hiding-

He turns his face toward her as if he is trying to listen, trying to catch more words on her breath. His mouth is so close, lips parted. She thinks of how they scoured their cauldrons together in steely silence, and then, how she had felt him watching her, and how it had felt then like accusation or hatred or even an outright attack on her breeding, now she sees it-the boy from years ago, staring back out at her, and she understands now how wrong she was. It was never hatred, but something deeper, darker, more terrible.

And she has told the truth. She has been blind to this. It is sickening, thrilling, as the moment hangs there, but she understands that he will not move forward. He will never move forward unless she drags him with her.

This is not the hard part, she reminds herself, and she leans into him, and their lips meet.

At first, he is not kissing her back, but she moves her hand to his neck, and his hands tighten around her suddenly, and he is kissing her back with a ferocity she has never known was in him. Her body feels lit up, like she has just been plugged into the wall. And suddenly, this is not the hard part, no longer something to get through, or a necessary evil, or something to be endured with shut eyes and thoughts of England.

She tugs at the satin knotted around her middle and his hands travel up her back to tangle in her hair. His other hand slides around her waist, thumbing her ribs, tracing their outline through her robe and skin.

She succeeds in undoing the knot, and the robe falls open. Like wrapping paper, she thinks, and a tiny shiver goes through her.

But his mouth is gone, and she feels suddenly cold, and his hands are fumbling at her waist with the sash. He isn't looking at her. He's looking at his own hands on her waist, holding the dressing grown shut.

"No," he says, and he sounds unsteady. He swallows, and says it again, firmer this time. "No."

It stings. This is only a plan, she reminds herself. Get his wand. It has nothing to do with her and everything to do with poison and children, but it stings still.

"Sev-"

But he doesn't let her finish. "I don't know why you're here-doing this."

"Why do you think?" she says hotly, evading the lie.

"It doesn't matter." He shakes his head. "We can't." And he takes a tiny step back, holding her shoulders at arm's length.

She is holding the robe shut now, and unexpected tears prickle her eyes. The words tumble out, messy and awful and true enough. "I thought-I had hoped that you-felt this way. About me."

He doesn't answer. He smooths her hair back from her face, and for just a moment, he parts his lips, and it seems like he's going to say something, anything, he is going to confess it all, and she won't have to betray him-but he doesn't. He just looks into her like there's something there only he can see. And his eyes move to her left hand holding the robe tight across her throat, lingering, perhaps, where a wedding band might go.

Her heart turns to stone. It's almost as good as a confession.

-Almost. She would still like to hear the confession.

He lets her go and walks toward the master bath, saying something about draught of dreamless sleep, and the wand is so close, the tears are still prickling her eyes and she feels the hot flush of shame suffusing her ears and cheeks and chest, and the wand is so close, and he looked for the ring as she has, he knows, it must be all true, and the wand is so close-she lunges for it.

When he emerges from the master bath, holding a small phial, it's pointed squarely at his chest. The wand tip doesn't even waver.

"Harry. James."

It feels so good to say them out loud, to Severus, she wants to scream the names. But the wand tip begins to shake, and she knows she must focus. Severus is dangerous. Think of what he must have done. Think of what he could do.

"I know I'm under a memory charm. A strong one. Probably too strong to break and keep me sane. But I want to know what it's hiding. Harry. James."

He seems to sag, as if all the air is going out of him.

"Tell me what happened to them."

Severus casts about the room, but returns to her eyes. "You married James Potter. You had a child, Harry. A prophecy was made-that Harry would be the one who could defeat the Dark Lord. I prophecy that I overheard." His hand is huge, spidery on his chest. His voice has a low note of resignation, and deeper still, a rehearsed tone, as if he has said these words in a mirror many times to make sure they would come out correctly, as if he had known that someday this would be forced out of him. He sets down the phial.

Lily keeps breathing. This is not the hard part, she reminds herself. This was never going to be the hard part.

"When the Dark Lord decided to kill your son, I went to Dumbledore and asked him to protect you. The Fidelius charm was done, but Peter Pettigrew was your secret-keeper, and he betrayed you." He looks away from her, and something moves over him like a shadow, and his mouth becomes a narrow, hard line. "I got the secret out of him myself and took you away before he arrived. I barely managed to cover the whole thing up. Claimed Pettigrew was playing a part in a larger scheme of the Order's. Laying a trap. A trap I disabled." His smile is wan, bitter, and he gestures around. "That lie bought this house. The Dark Lord extracted-" He shakes his head. "People will confess to anything under torture."

Lily wonders what Severus must have done to Peter-what horrors must the trembling wand in her hand must have seen-to transform him like this. He could meet her eyes when he spoke of working for the Dark Lord, but not when speaking of this. She wants to cast the wand away, to stop him speaking. These are the answers, she reminds herself. This is what you wanted.

"I went with you?" she asks, incredulous.

"Not willingly," he mutters. "I had to Stun you." He speaks to the snake on the sash at her waist with its single, glinting pearl eye. "When you woke, it was over. They were gone. You were so angry-but you were alive." He shakes his head and takes a step toward her. "The Ministry fell within the month, and they started rounding all the muggle-borns up, catching them and imprisoning them if they ran. I said I had captured you. I asked to-_keep_ you." His mouth twisted again, an ugly expression moving across his face. "They say it's a form of employment, rehabilitation, but naturally it's less than that. All they need to do is find anther muggle-born when the one they've got wears out-you have no idea how many women Macnair has gone through, these past years-he keeps their heads, like the Blacks preserve house-elves-"

"Stop it." Lily shakes her head and grits her teeth. "I know what I'm good for, all right?"

He stops pacing and looks at her for a moment that seems to stretch forever. "I couldn't let that happen to you."

"And everyone else, then? Everyone else can rot? Like my husband and my child?" She does not like how shrill her voice is becoming, but she can't contain it. It's like a scream is fighting its way out underneath and between the words. "Or do you think they don't matter because you made me forget them?"

"You agreed to it!" he shouts, and his face is flushed suddenly with fury. "It was killing you!"

The wand-tip falters. His hand passes across his eyes again, as if he's trying to draw the memory out.

"You wouldn't eat. I had to keep you out of the kitchen, away from all the knives. You broke the mirror in your room and tried to-" He shook his head. "I asked you if you wanted to live. If you wanted to forget. You said yes."

She mouths the syllable. _Yes._ It feels strange in her mouth, like a foreign word.

"I couldn't stand to watch you suffer. I did the memory charm so you wouldn't have to live with it."

"And you?"

His mouth is a hard, thin line, and he meets her eyes, finally. "I live with it."

It falls into place, then. Sirius was wrong.

"I started-remembering their names," she murmurs. She drops the wand to her side, puts it down on the table next to her. She holds up both hands, palms out, and says each name again. Sinking into the bed, she rests her hands on her knees. "Just the names. Didn't know who they were." She rubs her abdomen absently. "I had a son."

He moves next to her, but doesn't go for the wand. He sinks into the bed next to her.

"You were always better at charms than me. And the bigger the memory charm, the more likely it is to break down. It could come back. If the names are coming back, it might break down entirely, come back to you in parts without destroying-"

She laughs humorlessly. "Parts. I'm in bits and pieces."

The silence stretches on, and she can hear him breathing next to her, his eyes on her hands.

She swallows. "I want my wand back. And my ring." When she looks up at him, he is still watching her hands.

He nods, stands, and moves to the bookcase. He removes a large volume and opens it. Inside are a few things, but her willow wand-so small inside the huge book-and she can't hold in the tears any longer. He removes a ringbox, and offers it first, but she shakes her head.

"My wand," she breathes, and he extends it toward her, hilt-first.

She lifts it from his fingers and sparks, violet and brilliant, illuminate Severus' face from below and drift slowly to the floor. The light makes him look even colder, and it makes his face look hollow.

"I've wanted it back for so long and now I can't even think of something to do with it," she breathes. Her thumbs go under her eyes to wipe away whatever is welling there. She opens the ring box. The slim gold band that sits there next to a rather large diamond, glittering like a single, watchful eye. She takes them out, slips them on her finger, but they look wrong there. She rotates them, trying to make them feel comfortable, but then finally takes them off and puts them back in the box. "I couldn't wear them around anyway. Someone would notice." She offers the ringbox back to him, and he takes it, eyes searching her face.

He turns his back to her and puts the ring box back into the book, and replaces it carefully on the shelf. "And now?"

She stands, strokes the length of her wand with one finger. "It depends on what you mean to do to Beauxbatons."

He looks weary, again, and worse-defeated. He shakes his head. "I've had the poison worked out for months, hoping they'd scale up their defenses. He's getting impatient. I can't delay it much longer. I'll have to brew it and give it to him."

She rotates the wand in her hands, and then drops it in the pocket of the dressing gown. "Is that what you do, now?"

He looks at her, then rises, moving to a side-table. He removes a bottle from a cabinet, pours himself something-it smells like port, old and sweet and rich-and offers a glass to her. His eyes are hooded, dark, his face still and cold. "I do a number of things for the Dark Lord. Creating new poisons is among them."

"But wasn't it always like this?" she protests, taking the glass but not sipping it. "This was always part of his plan. You knew that when you joined up."

"I was a fool," he snaps. He pours a glass for himself, and takes a sip. It seems to steady him.

"How did he-get you?"

He swirls the glass, and looks into it. "Power. Respect. I was a transparent child. But once you take the Mark there's no way out, and Bellatrix-" he spits the name with contempt- "takes you in the night to practice the various Unforgivable curses on the vagrants living near the river near Spinner's End-" He breaks off, takes another sip rather more vigorously than is necessary, and sets the glass down so hard it shatters.

Before she thinks, she is at his side, and whispers, "_Reparo."_ And it goes back together, the cracks sealing in tiny fissues of the dark red liquid. The glass looks veined now, as if it has come to some sort of horrible life. It sits in a puddle of wine.

She is grinning, giddy with the rush of magic for the first time in years. She looks at him. He's staring at the glass. "Sorry. I suppose I've ruined the glass."

He shakes his head, pinches his brow.

She looks into the puddle and sets her own glass next to it. "There is-there's another option," she says slowly. "For Beauxbatons."

"If we run, he'll find us."

"No." She shakes her head. "We wouldn't have to. If you change the proportions-let me tamper with the nightshade-"

"No. If it's obvious, he'll know it was us."

"Us," she says. It's not quite a question.

He inclines his head ever so slightly, but watches her hands still. Her left hand, she realizes. Her ring finger.

"I haven't been out of the house in years," she says. "What's it really like out there? For people like me?"

"If you want to leave, I won't keep you here." He leans away from her, defiant and angry.

She should be used to this. It's Severus. He could never answer straight if he had to opportunity to be surly. "I'll leave when you chuck me out, and not before," she says evenly.

He makes a disgruntled noise and appears very interested in his own crossed arms. "I would never-"

"You haven't heard what I want to do yet. You might change your mind."

He looks mutinous. "Tell me, then."

"I want to destroy him."

There is never a question anymore who an unspecified _him_ might refer to. It can be no one else.

Severus flinches, but recovers admirably with a retort. "How do you suggest we go about doing that? Ask him politely to resign? Point our wands at a map of the Continent and shout _reparo?_"

_We_ again, she notes. And _our._ Her smile widens. "No. But there is a resistance."

"If you mean the Order of the Phoenix, I can assure you all of its members are dead, under the Imperius curse-or, in the case of Alastor Moody, tortured into madness and on public display in the Ministry." He glances at her and holds her gaze. His eyes are hooded, unreadable, his voice cold, his body perfectly still. "I believe he has most recently taken to flinging his feces at anyone who lingers too long at his cage."

Her smile falters. "Good lord."

"If I took you out there, you wouldn't recognize it."

Anger blazes suddenly inside of her. "And what are we supposed to do, then? Walk about like mice and pretend everything is all right? Poison children?"

"I have kept the both of us alive and well for six years," he snarls. "I will continue."

Before she can stop the word, she spits, "Coward."

The word makes him convulse, like he is being shaken out of paralysis. For a moment, he almost looks as if he might strike her. When he speaks, though, his voice is low, dangerous, trembling with anger. "You have no idea the things I have done to keep you safe."

"Is that the choice, then? My life and your life over the lives of thousands of others?"

"It's not your choice to make."

"Then how are you any different than any of them?" she shouts, gesturing to the door. "What-your reasons for doing what you do are nobler? You're willing to kill in the name of keeping us safe instead of in cold blood? Do you think _he_ cares about the difference so long as you obey his command?"

He seizes her shoulder. He is flushed, bright pink patches flooding his cheeks with color, his eyes wide and full of fire. His teeth are bared-but it's not inhuman. He's so human in this moment, it terrifies her. "You come to me-like this-trying to fool me, steal my wand, confront me with accusation after accusation-" he shakes her- "I have done nothing but show you kindness and safety, and _this-_" he throws her from him, and she stumbles back, still clutching her wand. "Get out of my chambers."

She points her wand at his face as soon as she recovers her feet and steps slowly backward, to the door, feeling her way with her heels. Groping blindly, she searches for the knob, her face contorting with anger, searching for something, anything, a weapon that will dig deeper than a knife or the wand in her hand. But she knows what he looks like now-and the resemblance is so striking she cannot resist snarling, "Your father would be proud." Before he can close the distance between them, she has fled through the door and is running, sash fluttering behind her, locking and sealing doors as she passes through them to ensure he can't follow.


	6. Chapter 5: Agreement

"Get out of my laboratory."

"No," she replies waspishly, not looking up. The root must be diced very fine to have its intended effect, and Lily isn't going to slice off a finger to appease Severus' snit. After an hour pulling herself together in her room after fleeing his chambers, she had made a decision: she got dressed, took her wand, and began to brew in his laboratory. Early morning light now streams through the window. A cold cup of tea sits on the side table on top of a stack of parchment. The topmost parchment is covered with her own handwriting, stained with previous attempts and tests done through the night. But this attempt is going to work, and it is not going to be ruined or abandoned simply to appease _him._

"It is not a request."

"I'm not accustomed to taking orders from you." She prods the fire beneath the cauldron. He's nothing but a black speck in her peripheral vision. "You don't want me to leave just now anyway, the potion is at a particularly volatile stage. If you insist on sulking here alone, I'm more than happy to leave you to it in quarter hour, but I won't blow off the back half of the house just because you're moody."

He doesn't say anything, which probably means he's standing there and glaring at her-as if that would change anything-or perhaps even shaking with rage or some equally impotent emotion, and Lily doesn't care. She feels reckless. She is free. The knife neatly swipes all the diced root off her cutting board and into her hand, and from her hand into the cauldron, and she whips the wooden spoon through three swift clockwise revolutions before striking it twice on the cauldron's edge as it turns from a light, transparent blue to deep brown. Approximately the color of Severus' eyes, really.

She looks up at him.

He looks awful. Miserable. He looks like a fifteen year old who has just called his best friend a mudblood, really. It's a look she remembers quite well. She didn't soften then, and she won't now.

"If you wish me to get accustomed to taking orders from you, by all means, give the order again. Maybe pull out your wand and wave it threateningly or something. At least I'm no longer under the illusion that you won't hurt me to get your way. Maybe that new fear in me will render you more effective."

He flinches from this truth. "I did not intend-"

"What you _intended,"_ she interrupts, slapping the spoon down to the cutting board with a sharp clatter, "does not matter. What you intended has never mattered, Severus."

They glare at each other across the table, through the cauldron's steam. He's so still and pale he might be a statue. In contrast, the heat of her angry flush and her billowing breaths make her feel like living furnace.

She looks away first. She picks up the knife, testing it with her thumb. It is dulled with use. The long sharpener points to Severus like a threat, and she rasps the edge of the knife along it slowly-not quite a threat, but a warning.

"You should have paid more attention in herbololgy," she says finally, her tone measured. "You'd know that there's a way to make this poison nonlethal. Easy."

"He will test it," he snaps. "If it does not work-"

"Tell him your pet mudblood tampered with it, then."

"Your life would be forfeit."

"You say that as if it mattered."

"It does." His anger is bringing him to life again. His shoulder twitches, as if to draw his wand. This, she knows-this is what she wants. This is so much better than his unreachable, untouchable stillness.

"Prove it," she challenges. "Living here, unable to leave this home, knowing the world outside despises me-as if that were such a life."

His jaw works. He is chewing on it now, the truth. He's not stupid. He has been a lot of things, but outright stupidity has never been among them.

"I'm going to do with with or without you." Maybe he doesn't know it now, but it's an offering. If she didn't care at all, she wouldn't tell him anything. She would just do it. Consequences be damned.

His quiet movement lasts so long, he almost goes still again, but he makes a nasal sound and says, like it's an insult, "Gryffindor."

"Git."

His arms cross before him, but his shoulders are lower, almost relaxed. "Are you going to blow off the back half of my home now, or later?"

"Not at all, if I can help it. Could you fetch me the bottles of nightshade tincture over there? I want to keep an eye on this in case it gets cranky."

It's like a wall has come down. He brings her the bottles-still slightly glowing with faintly violet light-and holds one up to his face to inspect it. "You've done something to them. A charm?"

"Sort of." She opens a bottle and dumps the contents through a cloth, straining out nightshade pieces. "I made this tincture last night. Enchanted the roots themselves. If I'm right, the tincture should take on the enchantment and pass its properties on to the poison itself." She extends her hand, and he drops the bottle into it. She opens it, gives it a sniff, and pours it with its companion into a small bowl. "If you'd have paid attention in herbology, you'd know that nightshade takes on charms rather well."

"It will still be a poison?" 

"Yes." The third bottle is strained, and-slipping on Severus' too-large dragonhide gloves, because nightshade can have interesting reactions with flesh-she squeezes the last of the liquid from the cloth.

He raises an eyebrow.

She can't help a smile of self-satisfaction. "It's brilliant, really," she says. "It'll test precisely like it should. If I'm as good as I think I am-and you know that I am-he won't know a thing."

He watches her work, adding the strained tincture and stirring vigorously again, counting seconds under her breath. The potion clears suddenly, giving off blue sparks. She skims off a brilliant blue foam from the top His focus on her movements-her hands-makes her feel warm around her cheeks and ears.

She extinguishes the fire beneath the cauldron and twirls her wand between two fingers, meeting his gaze again.

"It's done. It could probably use some filtration, but it's done. Would you like to test it?"

His eyebrows move upward ever so slightly. "On what?"

She taps her wand against her mouth twice, pensively, and then points it at the spoon. Slowly-she has not done this in a while and she has never been very good at transfiguration-ever so slowly, it becomes a mouse. A wood-patterned mouse, but a mouse nonetheless. With an eyedropper, she siphons off a bit of the clear poison, and holds the mouse steady against her chest. It struggles against her grasp, refusing to open its mouth.

With a snort of frustration, she says, "Sev-can you-" 

"_Imperio."_ The mouse falls still as death. There's still fear in its tiny, dark eyes, but it's at the bottom now, like a stone at the beneath the surface of a creek. It opens its mouth.

It's just a spoon, she reminds herself, and she places a drop in its mouth. It swallows with only a slight tremble.

"It'll take a while," she says, stroking the mouse's head with her thumb. "Of course, you'd want it to take a while. I estimate about two days with only minor symptoms."

"And then?"

"Oh, the mouse will die." She conjures a tiny, delicate cage. The mouse steps calmly inside and, when she shuts the door to the cage, Severus lifts the curse. It scurries to and fro, an image of silent panic. The smile born of magic and potion-making after so many empty years fades from her mouth. She knows exactly how it feels.

"I assume you'll like to know how it works," she says, lifting the cage and setting it on a side-table, away from the fumes of the bench.

"I have a few ideas. None of them will fool the Dark Lord." His voice is cool, but there was no disguising the interest there.

"It's a handful of charms. An identifying charm, and mental projection. When you know what it is-you know what it is, and that's that. When you don't know-you still know." She turns from Severus and empties the remainder of the poison in the eyedropper into a glass jar from the cabinet and, rummaging, brings down its identical mate. With her wand, she fills both with water and turns back to him, holding the identical jars, each full of clear liquid. "Here. Tell me which has the poison."

He inspects at the jars, and then, without moving, says, "The one in your right hand."

"You see?" She sips from the one in her left. "The rest of it's your recipe. The addition of St John's Wort is rather elegant, I wouldn't have thought of it but it should stave off the worst of the effects til it's too late to be treated. I took the liberty of looking at your notes-you should have better security, by the way, if you actually intend to keep anyone with a wand out of them."

"I did not intend to keep anyone with a wand out of them. Just those-without."

She raised an eyebrow. "Me?"

He doesn't say anything, but his mouth thins and eyebrows twitch, as if to say, _who else is there?_

The disgust twists across her face only briefly, but she decides to take a page out of his book. "I've decided things are different now," she said coolly, regarding him through lowered eyelashes. "You know what I want to accomplish."

"And if I wish to stop you?" His stillness holds only the smallest menace, but she knows how fast he is, how he can change immediately to someone else. He's always been swift, despite his other faults as a duelist and a man.

She watches him, her grip on her wand suddenly tight. Her voice is low. "I'm not the empty-headed girl you ask me to be when your _colleagues_ come by. I can defend myself."

The silence between them is no longer jovial. It is thick, electric, neither looking away.

Her voice is low, almost begging when she speaks. "I don't want to fight you. I want you to do the right thing." She swallows. "I hope doesn't come to violence between us," she says finally.

He inclines his head. It is the first time he has moved in what feels like a century. "As do I."

"And the rest?"

He purses his lips, but nods slowly.

"I want to hear you say it."

It looks as if he is about to say something else, but he nods. "I will help you."


	7. Chapter 6: Joining Forces

The Floo powder makes the fire turn brilliant emerald, and Lily sticks her head in. "Padfoot," she says, and the universe swirls around her. She is tired-she has not slept since their argument, and it's evening now-but this meeting is important, and it cannot happen soon enough. It is bad enough that it had to wait till this evening, when Severus ran his errand for more ingredients to mass-produce the poison, and no matter how much she wishes she could sleep, she must persevere.

The emerald flames bring her to rest in an expansive and beautifully appointed room. Regulus sits at a desk across the room, and the huge black dog-Sirius-sleeps on the dishevelled bed.

Lily coughs, and both start. Sirius comes to her first, transforming as he comes such that he is fully human when he comes to the hearth.

"Don't, what if someone comes in?" Regulus hisses to him as he approaches, but Sirius waves him off.

"Have you done it?" Sirius asks, his sallow face brilliant with excitement.

"Is this hearth secure?"

"Yes," Regulus says.

"Have you done it?" Sirius hisses again, looking starved for good news.

"I've done better. Come through and see."

The brothers looked at one another. Lily withdraws her head, and, after a minute's pause, a dog and Regulus stepped through the hearth.

Instead of looking at the carpet and curtsying, she smiles at the dog and pats his head. He lets out a whine.

"I'll call Severus." Pulling out her wand with a flourish that raises Regulus' eyebrows and makes the dog wag its tail furiously, she sends a brilliant patronus galloping along toward him through the open door at the other end of the room. He just got back a minute ago, she heard the door open and shut; he should be done putting away the potion ingredients by now. It's thoroughly unnecessary, but it makes her point quite well.

Regulus is holding his sooty cloak at the end of an arm extended toward her. Reflexively, Lily takes it and shakes it free of soot, hanging it on the rack. Regulus settles himself into a chair.

"So, what is it you've done?" Regulus asks.

"I've convinced him."

"You're kidding."

"I have my wand, don't I?"

The dog paces before the hearth in a remarkably human way. Even his head turns when Severus steps over the threshold of the doorway.

Severus takes a moment to get his bearings, and assumes the mask he always uses for Death Eaters. "Regulus."

Regulus fumbles for only a moment, and then gets to his feet and inclines his head. "Severus."

"Oh, quit it," Lily snaps. She points to Regulus and Sirius. "They've been running resistance and helping Muggleborns for a while now." She points to Severus. "He's agreed to help you."

The grandfather clock in the corner ticks away sixteen solid seconds before anyone moves.

"It's been you?" Severus says slowly.

"Your servant's gone mad." It's obvious he's scrambling, that he doesn't quite trust her, not nearly enough for this.

She rounds on Severus. "Were you lying earlier? Are you going to help us or not?"

For a moment, he flinches, but he watches her face and then turns to Regulus. The word _us_ seems to ring in the air. "I am going to help her."

Regulus stays still as more seconds tick away.

"Show yourself," she commands Sirius, pointing a finger at him. "I'm tired and I want to get these games over with as fast as possible."

The dog whuffs once.

"Tell me in people words or don't waste your time, dog-breath," she snaps.

A slightly sheepish Sirius emerges from the carpet and stands. "What I meant was that I forgot how bossy you are, Lily."

"Good to know it's not a quality that's gone off with age," she says.

Severus is looking at Sirius with a look of disgust. "You were supposed to be dead."

"And you were supposed to have dissolved into a puddle of your own grease by now, but we can't always get want we want, can we, Snape?"

The disgust turns to loathing on Severus' face, and his dark wand is pointing to Sirius when Lily steps between them.

"I'm sure we're all very impressed with each other and I'm sure this could turn into a very entertaining and unproductive duel," she says, looking between the pair. "But if you two insist on quarrelling like school children, I will hex both of you until you stop."

A triumphant smile breaks like a wave across Sirius' face. "Go for boils on his-"

"If you think I'm on your side in this argument, you will find yourself very mistaken."

Sirius looks taken aback, and then motions to the man behind her. At least Severus put his wand away. "Lily-surely you don't trust _him_."

"As a matter of fact, I do."

"Why?" Sirius smirks. "Did he spin you a pretty lie about why you can't remember your marriage to a man he loathed?"

"I believe what he told me, if that's what you're asking."

"Yeah, and what did he tell you?"

"It's none of your concern."

"It bloody well is," Sirius says, his ire rising.

Regulus puts his hand on Sirius' shoulder. "Enough," he says coolly.

"We are going to work together, and you are going to behave yourselves." She shoots Severus a warning look over her shoulder and the faint smirk playing around his mouth dies. "_Both_ of you. We share a very important goal and arguing helps no one."

"And what, pray tell, is that goal?" Regulus asks warily.

"To bring down the Dark Lord," she says.

The two Death Eaters shudder slightly.

"That's what I've been telling him," Sirius grumbles, jerking his thumb at Regulus.

"It's not so simple as either of you make it sound," Regulus snaps, as if this is an argument they have had many times.

"Yes, it is," Sirius continues, his voice rising. "We hold onto our bollocks and do it. What's so hard about that? Surely between you and Snape we can get through his security twice as easy, now."

Regulus purses his lips and says nothing. Lily looks at Severus and his unblinking eyes are on Regulus. Severus' gaze moves to meet hers. Understanding crackles between them.

"What aren't you telling us, Regulus?" Lily asks.

Regulus looks mutinous. "It's one thing to help mudbloods out of slavery. It's quite another to attempt to destroy the Dark Lord himself."

She lets the slur go for now. "If you're discovered doing that, you're just as dead as you would be otherwise," Lily says coolly, inspecting her nails but watching him beneath her eyelashes.

"This is different," Regulus insists, putting his head in one hand and slumping back into the chair.

"Tell them, Reg," Sirius says, almost pleading. "In for a knut, in for a galleon."

Regulus looks up at his brother for a moment, heaves a great sigh, and then says, "It's a long story. I should like a drink before I tell it." He looks expectantly at Lily.

"Sod off. We've got plenty of wine, summon it yourself. You've got a wand, haven't you?"

Regulus, shocked, turns to Severus, who merely tilts his head toward her as if deferring to her authority. Sirius is trying to hold back laughter and failing.

"Don't look at him," Lily snaps at Regulus, increasingly irritated with him. "I'm not a house-elf. I'm an equal partner in this venture now. Hearing what you have to say is rather more important than fetching drinks.."

He looks irritated. "I was trying to save you the trouble of hearing some ghastly truths."

"I'm not a child either."

He shrugs and flicks his wand. Wine comes soaring through the open door, along with a glass. With a tap of his wand, it begins uncorking itself. Satisfied that he would have his drink regardless of her insolence, he begins, "The Dark Lord seeks dominion over all things."

"That's not news."

He turns to her, looking cold. "Are you going to interrupt me, or do you want to hear what I have to say?"

She purses her lips and gestures, welcoming him to continue.

"He seeks dominion," he says, enunciating carefully, "Over all things. Not just the country, or the world, or all its people." He looks pointedly at Lily, daring her to ask what else there could be. When she does not interrupt, he continues. "He seeks dominion also over death itself."

Severus raises an eyebrow. "There are a number of ways. They all come with a high cost."

Regulus looks only slightly less annoyed to be interrupted by a fellow Death Eater. "And what cost do you think he's willing to accept, then?" he snaps, irritated.

Severus looks up to the ceiling, thinking. "Not the storage of memories-inelegant and incomplete-"

"Don't think he hasn't tried it," Regulus says.

"But he won't have stopped there."

Sirius snorts. "Of course not."

Severus shoots Sirius a glare. "If you have anything to contribute, kindly share your thoughts with us."

Sirius rolls his eyes. "Sod off, Snape. I never went in for any of the Dark stuff, and you know that."

Severus opens his mouth, ready to spit fire, Lily's cuts across him. "If you don't know anything, Black, perhaps you should shut it and let those who do know talk."

Regulus waits a moment, and Sirius doesn't respond, glaring first at Severus and then at her. Regulus turns back to Severus, and is blunt, as if he has had enough tiptoing around it. "He has made horcruxes."

Only Severus recoils. "You're sure?" he demands.

"He tested the protections for the horcrux on my own house-elf. Let slip enough that, based on his retelling, I knew what it had to be. He would protect nothing else so closely."

Lily watches them exchange an inscrutable look.

"That's not the worst of it," Sirius adds. "Reg thinks there's more than one."

"More than-" Severus is momentarily thunderstruck, and the mocking tone is not present when he addresses Sirius. "How many?"

Regulus responds, "We've been chasing them down for two years. But-based on the artifact the house-elf saw, and from other probable ones we have identified and sought out-they will most likely be artifacts of magical and historical significance."

"That does not narrow the field all that considerably," Severus says dryly.

Regulus holds up a finger. "It does. He made them all before he truly took power. Therefore, they would have been artifacts he had access to before his rise to power."

"Who's to say he hasn't made more in the interim?" Lily interjects.

Both Regulus and Severus turn to her, as if they are both surprised to find her still in the room. In their silence, Sirius picks up the slack.

"We don't know. But we suspect that he hasn't because-well-convenience and vanity, mostly. Convenience because the ceremony is complicated and horrible-"

"Like that would stop him," Lily mutters, but Sirius continues on as if he hasn't heard her.

"-and vanity, because how many artifacts can he possibly find that he thinks are worthy of housing a part of his soul?"

Lily's eyebrows shoot up. "That's what it is, then? A part of his soul?"

Sirius nods.

"And if he dies, these items will tie him to life?"

He nods again.

Lily considers this. "How does one make a horcrux?"

The Black brothers exchange a look. "Murder," Regulus says. Sirius is looking pointedly at the floor.

"That's not surprising." Lily narrows her gaze at Sirius. "What are you keeping from me."

"Nothing," Sirius says, too quickly.

Lily turns her steely gaze on Regulus. If nothing else, he will tell her the truth out of less misplaced concern over her feelings.

"We think the Dark Lord has selected the deaths used to create these artifacts as carefully as he has selected the vessels themselves," Regulus says. "Significant deaths. Significant defeats on his rise to power."

The clock ticks loudly, as if it is standing directly behind her and wants her to understand its meaning. Her blood runs cold.

"My son," she says flatly. "His prophesied destroyer."

It is to the young man's credit that he holds her gaze steadily even when Sirius cannot and Severus has blanched pale as porcelain. "We think so, yes," Regulus says coolly.

Lily bites off her words with ferocity. "Then I will just have to really enjoy their destruction, won't I?"


	8. Chapter 7: An Invitation

When Lily goes to sleep that night, she dreams vivid dreams full of battle, flashes of green light and running, always running, firing hexes over her shoulder, running but getting away and disapparating into twisting darkness.

It dissolves, and there is a face-messy dark hair and round glasses sliding down his nose. His mouth is moving, he is saying something, and smiling, and then he is kissing her, and then-

She is aware she is dreaming. She can feel her hands fisting in the sheets. It doesn't make the dreams any easier to bear. She wakes up in a cold sweat.

The face is only somewhat familiar-it is the natural extrapolation of James Potter from the young man she knew at school into the man she had married. He is older than she knew him at sixteen, his face hollowed by maturity, his jaw wider, and there is something in his eyes she can't quite put her finger on. But the dreams are just a series of pictures, just her mind replaying whatever old film reel it can dig up. The person she is now has nothing to do with this ghost, but something stirs inside of her, as if someone else's heart is breaking inside her chest.

When she wakes up, Lily relaxes her hands as best she can, rubbing at the back of her neck as if her chin had been tilted up to allow for the ghost of James to reach her throat. She dresses quickly, pulling out old blue jeans and a t-shirt instead of the formal servant's dresses she is normally forced into.

Seven, they said. The Dark Lord most likely would have made six horcruxes, tearing his soul into seven parts. Three is another powerfully magic number, but most likely too few for his tastes. There is also thirteen, but again, Regulus pointed out, these were made during his rise to power. With immortality secured at seven parts, why continue the complicated, taxing process of tearing the soul? Why create more when he was so close to victory? Why weaken himself further?

She steps into the kitchen, swinging the unvarnished wooden door open, and stops on the threshold. Severus is already there, pouring himself a cup of tea.

Lily clears her throat. "I could have done that, you know. You could have woken me."

He inclines his head. "I could have. But you made it quite clear that you're no longer my servant."

"That doesn't mean you have to-what have you done?" Something blackened seems to be seething with its own life in a pot on the stove. She peers into it with apprehension.

Severus' mouth twists. "My cooking charms have never been very good, and I haven't had much cause to practice them."

"I don't think I ever learned them. I just do stuff the Muggle way." She flicks her wand and smiles into the now-empty pot, pleased with her Vanishing charm. "I'll show you a thing or two. For this morning, I'll play house-elf and you watch."

It is unreasonable for anyone to have so much trouble with cooking eggs, but by the end, he's managed not to break a yolk as he flips it. It takes quite a while, eating his failed over-easy eggs as they continue to try.

"There's got to be an easier way," he finally mutters, piling the last of white and yolk both onto buttered toast as they sit over tea.

"I'm sure there is, but magically-cooked food always tastes a little strange. You can just go-" she waves, emulating a wand, "bang, and turn an egg into this, but it'll taste a little weird. To me, anyway. It's always got a weird crackly taste, like how ozone smells. That's why you just enchant the knives to slice stuff up, or a spoon to stir, instead of just using the spell to turn ingredients into food."

He shrugs and takes a sip of tea, and with his face half-hidden with the teacup, he asks, "I thought you said you never learned them."

She tilts her head and chews, but there it is: to cook a piece of meat, it's a circular motion, and _carnecium._ The width of the circle described with the wand controls doneness. How does she know this? There's a flash of an old woman with Potter's nose smiling at her and moving her wand in a circle. She swallows the bite. "Interesting. I guess I knew it before and it's leaked through. Now that I know what's missing in my head, maybe the charm's weakened."

His eyes are on her face and sharp. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I'm fine." She waves him away as he rises from the kitchen table and pulls his wand from his sleeve. "I had a dream, I think it was memories. Potter talking at me. He looked older."

Severus' face crunches up for a second with dislike, but it relaxes back into a more usual frown. "No pain? No headaches?"

"Nothing." He looks like he doesn't believe her, so she takes his hand and gives it a squeeze. "If anything important comes through or hurts, I promise, you'll be the first to know. "

His brow unknits himself, and he holds onto her hand for a moment and then lets go, as if he's just remembered he shouldn't touch her. "Good."

"Don't get all professor on me. I saw that face, that's your professor face."

"I was only a professor for a few years," he protests.

"Who's at Hogwarts now, doing Potions?"

"Slughorn again," Severus says, sitting back down and taking up his tea.

"Still?"

Severus takes a sip, as if he's considering how much to tell her, but he relents. "The Dark Lord has indicated to me that this post is as much so he can keep an eye on Slughorn as it is because of his teaching skills."

Lily's eyebrows shoot up. "Why?"

Severus shrugs, his shoulders spiking up in his robes. "It is possible that Slughorn taught the Dark Lord when he was a student. His older supporters-Nott, Avery, perhaps Mulciber-I believe they knew him before he . . . took his title."

She almost wants to tease him, to ask him to say the name, but she resists. If he's giving her information, she doesn't want to jeopardize this openness. Instead, she latches onto a different name. "Mulciber?"

"Father to the one we know."

"You knew. I didn't know him at all."

He gives her an inscrutable look, but concedes the point. "Fine. Yes, the Mulciber that I knew. The younger died in the war, but the senior is still living and serving."

Lily takes this in. "It might be worth talking to Slughorn, then. He might be able to point us in the right direction for the horcruxes."

He considers this. "We will have to manufacture a reason to visit the school."

"Easy. The poison. You'd want his advice, naturally. He'd be flattered. More so if you promised him some of the elf-made wine we've got in the cellar."

He hesitates, but doesn't speak. She can read it clear enough, though.

"You hate the idea, don't you?"

"It is risky. If Slughorn is loyal-"

"Since when has old Sluggy ever been loyal to anything but his own preening ego? He was my favorite teacher, but goodness, Severus, you act like he's dangerous. Don't act like you and I can't play the fat old man like a fiddle."

He lets out a snort of almost-laughter. "I suppose."

"He can't have changed that much, can he? I've only seen him a few times since I graduated. You would know better."

"No, I think not."

"Invite him over for supper."

"He'll be busy with classes."

"Do you honestly think he'd turn us down? His two star pupils?"

"You can't think of it that way." He shakes his head. "I'm his star pupil. You're a servant who's lucky to be alive. Even if he doesn't want to treat you that way, he will, in front of me."

"In front of any original Death Eater, you mean." But she nods along. "No, I'll play the part."

He takes her hand across the table. His fingertips are cool in her palm. "I'm sorry."

"You say that every time."

"I'm sorry every time."

"Don't be. We're going to fix things instead of just being sorry for them."

She didn't mean the words to sting as they so clearly do, but he needs to know the truth, even if it hurts-particularly because it hurts, in fact. He withdraws his hand, and, for lack of something better to do with it, she pulls out her wand and clears the table with a wave. The dishes fly to the sink and begin dutifully scrubbing themselves.

"Floo him. I'll get in touch with the Blacks when you're done." She opens the fridge and begins chewing her lip. "I'll start something for dinner now. A ham, maybe, with pineapple rings. He'd find that delightfully quirky, I think." He still looks a little hurt when she looks up from the fridge, but she beams at him, leaving it to hang open and putting her arms around his neck. "Don't look so glum. We're moving forward. We've got ideas. We're gathering information. We're going to win this thing."

"Or we're going to die horribly." But there's no acid in it. He's smiling underneath that frown.

She pecks him on the cheek, if only to make him blush. "Of course we're going to die horribly. What ever gave you the impression that I didn't know that?"


	9. Chapter 8: Espionage

When Slughorn arrives, he looks around the house and Lily is there, smiling at his feet, curtsying, taking his coat.

"Ah, this house is as lovely as ever, Severus." In her peripheral vision, she can see Slughorn's eyes linger on her, sweeping her body, looking for-what? Bruises? Bandages? Scars? To see if she looks starved or beaten? She doesn't dare look up-no servant of her birth trained as well as Severus must claim she is would ever have the gall to look _up_ unless ordered to-but her smile widens. He finds nothing, naturally. Lily knows that this only makes it worse in their minds; when a servant bears no signs on her skin, it's only possible that the harm lies deeper. They must think him such a monster, she thinks, hanging Slughorn's coat. Such a cold, heartless monster, to take his childhood friend and put her in the servant's dress, to make such a cowed creature out of brazen, loud Lily Potter.

The dinner moves smoothly, with Slughorn complementing Severus' ridiculous but delightful choice of main course- "Such cheek!" he exclaims, and his eyes flicked over to her again, as if he knows, he must know that this was _her_ doing, _her _cheek, _her _cleverness. And then there is his constantly filled glass of excellent elf-made wine. They didn't dare adulterate it; Slughorn is, for all his faults, a master potion-maker with a refined palate for wine. He would be able to detect anything that would be potent enough to drag information out of him. Wits alone will have to suss it out. But it seems to be working. The effects of old camaraderie and wine are making themselves evident in the flush in Slughorn's cheeks and the breadth of his storytelling.

Once dinner is through, Severus leads him up the steps to the laboratory. When they're out of range, Lily draws her wand from its hiding place up her sleeve, flicks it, and the dishes march obediently down to the kitchen to scrub themselves clean. She creeps up to the door and listens, balancing a tray with more wine in one hand as a cover for her spying.

"-and Pollux Mulciber, being not the sharpest boy, you remember, adds the osmanthus and the whole thing went up in smoke!" Slughorn declares with a broad, ringing laugh. Severus responds with the throaty noise, almost a cough, that passes in the stead of a laugh. She recognizes it from a thousand times when she made a joke and it was too public for him to really laugh, or a thousand Slug Club parties where he had to feign interest in the stories of others. It is familiar and strained and it broadens her smile to hear it, the familiar sound of his polite tolerance and indulgence for some reason other than his own entertainment.

"I have heard," Severus broaches, "that you have not only taught Mulciber, but every member currently in the Dark Lord's service."

"Quite right! Quite right. The core group, naturally, I never saw those who went through Durmstrang or Beauxbatons, of course." Through the door, Lily can hear the _tink_ of an empty wine glass touching down on the bench. She will have to enter soon, to keep him at least off-balance with wine, but she would not interrupt this crucial moment for Severus. "Though none quite so brilliant as yourself, naturally."

"There are rumors," Severus continued, his tone still light, "that you taught the Dark Lord himself."

There is a moment of silence, and then Slughorn, sounding flustered, says, "Well, that's neither here nor there."

"Surely you remember him?"

"Of course!" Slughorn exclaims, too quickly, as if to say he is remembered, perhaps, rather too well.

"And this?" She cannot see it, but she imagines the broad, almost theatrical motion he might make to indicate the cooled poison in the cauldron, the arrogant and cold look he saves for fellow death eaters and strangers.

But Lily knows the silence is going on too long. The hidden conversation is becoming more and more apparent, and Severus is pressing too hard. Whatever he had done through the war, it must not have been this. She was always much better at this kind of thing, of course, which shocked all four of the Marauders, and in the war she herself had been-

She stops the thought, and for a moment, she almost wants to scream in triumph. _The war. _ She can remember-nothing distinct, just flashes, but there are raised eyebrows over grey eyes, and a gruff voice-the voice of Sirius, with that same familiar intonation he used when he first saw her-saying, "Merlin, Lily, remind me to never get on your bad side." And almost-familiar brown eyes glinting behind circular glasses, a knowing smile full of pride at her cleverness and bravery, a warm touch-

She wants to linger here, explore this sudden trapdoor.

She wants to so, so badly.

But there is work to be done, and Slughorn stalling within, and the game is almost up, so she lifts the tray of wine and puts the brown eyes aside, and opens the labaratory door.

Severus looks surprised and almost angry at her intrusion, but she carries the tray in with grace and sets it before them on the bench. She makes a show of uncorking the bottle, pouring more wine into each goblet, saying, "Elf-made, 1945, sirs. Special from the cellar on Master Snape's request." She re-corks the bottle.

And carefully, purposefully, she looks directly at Slughorn, into his eyes perched like gleaming stones atop his flushed cheeks. And then she turns to look at Severus' dark eyes, with a small but brilliantly genuine smile. "Sorry to interrupt. I'll leave you to it."

As she exits silently, she knows there is nothing about it to truly give them away. If the Dark Lord searches Slughorn's mind and memories with whatever dark powers he has been rumored to possess, he will find nothing truly traitorous. Enough to cast suspicion, perhaps, but not enough to cause anything momentous. But this show, this display will allay Slughorn's fears for her. She can hear its effects even as she quietly shuts the door behind her and presses her ear again to the keyhole.

Tentatively, so quietly she can barely hear it, Slughorn asks, "Lily, is she-is the a good servant?"

Severus does not speak for a long moment, and then says, "The best."

She doesn't want to risk listening at the keyhole after that. Really, she doesn't need to.

Lily waits up for him in the kitchen, drinking a substantially less ancient wine slowly. When he finally enters, well after midnight, he shuts the door behind him and she rises to her feet. Blood and wine rushes to her cheeks; he's been away for so long that she's nearly finished the bottle, and feels a little wobbly around the knees for it. It's loosened her muscles but hasn't helped her spinning mind.

"Well?"

He purses his lips, as if he is loath to share anything.

"Don't get that look with me. I clinched it for you, didn't I?"

Severus glances at the door again, as if he fears being overheard, but the tiny twist of his lips doesn't escape her notice. "Your appearance helped, yes."

She points to the chair. "Sit. Talk."

He almost looks about to protest, but instead he obeys the first of the commands.

She grins with purpled teeth and falls back into the chair, limbs askew, chin propped on her fist. "I was fantastic."

He snorts.

"Oh, don't _even._ You wouldn't _like_ me if I weren't fantastic."

"Do you care to hear what I managed to get out of him, or would you prefer to continue to congratulate yourself?"

"I was enjoying it, yeah." She lifts the almost-empty wine bottle. "Want some more before I interrogate you?"

Severus withdraws his wand, thinks for a moment, and then flicks it. A bottle comes soaring toward him, nudging open the door to the table.

"Ooh. The 1962. You know I like that one. I'm that good? Twenty-year-old-wine good?" She raps the cork with her own wand and it wiggles itself out. She fills his glass, and then her own, and lifts hers in a cupped hand. "To the Dark Lord," she toasts, a smirk twisting her mouth.

He toasts with her. "All seven parts of him."


	10. Chapter 9: Progress

"The art," Severus says Lily next morning, before the assembled Resistance, "is called _legillimency._ It is an arcane art, more dependent on the person than any spell or memorization. I am proficient enough with it myself; most death eaters have come by some form of defence against it or another."

"Occlumency," Regulus says. "Of course. I'm trained. We're not the only ones who have used legillimency, you know. The other side had it as well."

"Who's this _we_ you're talking about?" Lily asks sharply. "Unless I'm sorely mistaken, the 'other side' is _us,_ and if Sev knows how to do it, then we _do_ have it."

Regulus looks surprised by this, but inclines his head. "I suppose that is technically correct."

"Nothing technical about it," she replies.

"Regardless," Severus says, moving his gaze from her back to Regulus, "We will have to train you in the art, Lily, before we can make any sort of move. We cannot risk your mind giving our secrets away."

Sirius stands, and waves his wand. Lily had prepared breakfast again for the four of them, Severus not wanting to experiment with egg preparation before these new allies. She is confused, for a moment, why Sirius is casting a spell-but then the dishes begin marching out the door.

"Oh. Thank you," Lily says, surprised and rising as well. "Here, I'll give you a hand. Show you where things are in the kitchen." She looks from Regulus to Severus. "You'll show me how to do it, then. I'm a quick study. We won't be a minute, don't plot too much without us."

Severus nods and gives a little cryptic frown, but turns back to Regulus, and they begin a heated discussion about some sort of Dark thing that completely goes over Lily's head.

Lily and Sirius exit, and they follow the floating dishes in silence, watching them shuffle themselves through the air at the behest of his wand. It is Sirius who breaks the silence.

"I promised James I'd take care of you," he says. "I know that you don't remember it-or me, or us-"

"I remember you, Sirius. We went to school together. I just don't remember being friends with you." Her tone is light but she's watching him for a reaction.

He winces, but not in a way he tries to hide. "I know. But-"

She cuts across him and opens the door to the kitchen, blocking his path. "No. Listen to me." He opens his mouth to protest, but she raises a hand and he shuts it again. "Sev and I talked it out. I believe he put the memory charm on me to help me. I don't think it was good or selfless, but he did it to keep me safe. All of this-everything," she gestures around to the house, her wand, her apron. "Everything is to keep me safe. I don't agree with it, or what's been sacrificed in the name of my safety, and I think he's overprotective and a bit mad, but there it is. His intentions are good, and I've helped set those intentions on something greater than just keeping both of us safe. He's valuable and talented and he's on whatever side I'm on. And," her voice raising to keep him silent, "the memory charm is breaking down."

He looks flabbergasted. "It can do that?"

"He never was very good at charms." She smiles and then pushes through into the kitchen, setting the dishes to washing themselves and beginning the rest of the tidying-up.

"Lily," he begins, sounding pained.

"Oh, skip it," she says breezily. "I know what you're going to say, that he's a terrible, bad man, that I don't have to stay here like this, that I've already suffered enough and I don't have to fight or train or whatever difficult and life-threatening thing you think I'm too weak and damaged and female to do."

"I-" He shakes his head. "That's about the size of it, yeah."

"I'll be fine. As for Sev-he _is_ a bad man. Terrible. But do you want to try to handle him? Or leave him to Regulus? I've done the maths on this. I have to be here to keep him working. Besides, we work well together, always have." She pours herself more juice and leans her hip on the table. "And it's not like Regulus hasn't done the same horrible things in the service."

"That's not-you can't compare the two."

"How's it different, then?"

Sirius crosses his arms. "I went to Regulus and convinced him. Reg never wanted this. He never wanted enslavement or total dominance. He just got caught up."

"And so did Sev."

"You didn't see how he was."

"Yes, I _did_. Or are you forgetting that we were best friends almost all the way through school? Awfully strange, that; if he were changing my memory, he didn't touch anything incriminating about himself. Not calling me mudblood after fifth year, or hexing Gloria in the middle of sixth, or that awful Christmas prank that group of Slytherins pulled-nothing."

"You wouldn't know if it were missing," Sirius says.

"I would. It'd be coming back now, anyway, and it hasn't."

There's nothing for him to say to this, so he sets the clean dishes drying themselves on a dishtowel, and she helps, putting them away by hand.

Sirius is watching her, and he thinks he's being surreptitious, but she can feel him boring holes through the back of her old 1979 Quiddich World Cup shirt. It's almost as if he's expecting her to break down crying in a flood of tears. She turns to him, polishing a wine glass.

"Sirius, I don't know what sort of woman I was, what sort of woman you think I ought to still be, but I'm a solider. I've been looking for an opening for the past 6 years and in the meantime, I've been safe and healthy, which is more than I can say for other muggle-born witches. Until you came to me, it seemed like the whole thing was ironclad, and Sev couldn't do anything but-delay his tasks for the Dark Lord." She puts the glass down. "But now here we are." She tosses the towel over her shoulder, smiling up at him, and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you for coming. Just because I don't need saving doesn't mean you haven't helped."

He looks at her hand and swallows, and then shudders, as if he's just had a terrible thought and he's trying to shake it physically. And suddenly his arms are around her and his chin is on her shoulder. He's breathing into her hair hard like he's trying not to cry.

She doesn't have the heart not to embrace him in return. He is full of breath and warmth and a certain vulnerability in all the ways Severus isn't, and she rests her cheek against his broad shoulder. She is reminded suddenly or holding onto the tiny, shaking body of a homesick muggle-born first year, scared witless over the presence of ghosts in the castle. "It's okay," she whispers, not sure what else to say. Of course, she knows what's wrong. It's what should be wrong with her. "I'm sorry."

He shudders again, and pulls her against him hard for a moment, and then lets her go. "No-no, I'm sorry." He passes his hand across his mouth and shakes his great shaggy head slowly. "I miss him. James, I mean. I miss him as much as you-as much as you will." He passes his hand across his face again, and when his mouth emerges, it's a tight smile that looks full of effort. "Seeing you, like this, like you both were-it just reminds me of him."

"Of course it does." She puts a hand atop his head and musses his hair. "I wish there was something I could say to help, but all I can tell you is that we're working to destroy the people who murdered him."

"Of course," Sirius says, and his smile gets a little easier and less wistful. "You're his Lily all right. Whether you know it or not."

She has a few choice thoughts about this, namely that she doesn't want to belong to anyone, but she keeps her mouth shut. No need to upset him further. "Come on. The boys will miss us."

"Wait," Sirius says, catching her arm.

For a moment, she almost thinks he's going to kiss her. For a moment, it almost seems as if he is stumbling over this thought as well, but instead he pulls something silvery out of a deep pocket on his cloak.

"Dumbledore had this when James died. It's an invisibility cloak. It should be yours."

She touches it. It feels like woven rainwater, like solidified clouds. "Won't you need this?"

He smiles. "My disguise is perfect. Reg never goes anywhere without his faithful dog."

She can't take her eyes off it. It's beautiful, and it's something else too-she recognizes it from nights of having it around her shoulders, running swiftly and silently up the boys dormitory staircase with the thrill of disobedience and lust running hot through her veins, and the boy at the top of the stair waiting for her- "Thank you," she says finally, and tucks it into an unused mixing bowl under the kitchen sink.

She doesn't want to tell Severus about the cloak. It is an ace up her sleeve, an exit strategy, a final way to keep the fight alive in herself if everything goes to hell. Which, Lily knows, it very well might.

When they re-enter the sitting room, Severus and Regulus are discussing the availability of basilisk venom versus the use of Fiendfyre and other methods of destroying horcruxes. Sirius paces while they speak, and Lily takes her seat again, trying to follow the conversation. There's no use pretending either Lily or Sirius can be of use here; neither knows any real Dark magic, nothing of this magnitude. Finally there is a lull, and Lily interjects.

"This is all well and good, but we've told you what we found out from Slughorn. Chances are, there's seven. Can't destroy them til we find them. What do you know about their locations?"

Regulus glances at Severus, as if expecting him to reprimand her for speaking out of turn, but Severus' face remains impassive. With a hint of annoyance in his voice, he answers. "I have reason to believe that Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange have each been entrusted with one horcrux each. I do not believe they know the true nature of the artifacts they posses, but they have been instructed to guard them most carefully, and have so far done so." Regulus watches Sirius pace for a moment, and then continues. "This makes stealing and destroying them much more difficult. If the protections were inanimate, as they were with . . . the one I discovered . . . they could be defeated in a straightforward way with no one being the wiser. This will require more cunning."

Lily raises an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Bella's absolutely mad, mostly," Sirius mutters.

Regulus nods ruefully. "Her wits are . . . not entirely about her."

"What happened?"

Regulus looks at his folded hands, on the table. "She was captured by the last loyal faction of the Ministry after it fell and tortured for information. Starved for days and subjected to Cruciatus curse for hours at a time. When we finally liberated her and smashed the last stronghold the Minsitry had, we healed her body. But her mind . . ."

"She's barking," Sirius says bluntly.

Regulus shoots him a hateful look. "Sirius. A little respect."

"For _her_? She was a murderous bigot before and a madwoman now. I'll save my respect for those who deserve it." He gestures to Lily, who holds up her hands in surprise.

"Don't bring me into the sibling rivalry," she says.

"Her lucidity is somewhat impaired," Regulus continues, biting his words off sharply and ignoring Sirius, "but she appears to have something like the Sight, now."

"Voldemort's favorite pet, as if she wasn't before," Sirius grumbles.

"Sight? Like a seer?"

"In a fashion. She also has a nasty tendency to see through disguises and disillusionment charms. If one is to deceive her, one must do so with cunning rather than magic."

Lily nods thoughtfully. "Lucius, then, should be easier to get past. I imagine it should be easier to visit him for a-a business related reason?"

Severus nods. "I agree."

Sirus looks for a moment like he wants to disagree purely to be contrary, but he wavers and then nods as well. "We think that makes the most sense, yeah."

"Then it's settled." Regulus rises. "I think we have enough to work with for me to look into the destruction while you and Lily look into procurement."

Severus stands as well. "We will send news as it transpires and keep the hearth quiet otherwise. Too much communication is suspicious."

"Agreed." With a nod, Regulus returns to the hearth and steps in. Sirius shoots Lily a smile and follows as a dog, and they disappear together in a whoosh of emerald flame.

After their departure, Severus stands and turns his face toward her to give her a strange look.

Lily smiles up at him bemusedly. If he wants to know something, she's going to make him ask.

Finally he says, "What did you and Black talk about?"

"Do you mean Sirius? There were two Blacks, you know." She shrugs, thinking of the cloak. "He thinks your evil and wants to whisk me away and keep me safe."

Severus scowls. "And what did you tell him?"

She sidesteps the question. "He wants the same things you want, you know."

"I beg to differ."

"Oh, come on. If you thought for an instant you could get me off this let's-destroy-he-who-must-not-be-named thing and put me out to pasture, you would. Am I wrong?"

He pushes his chair back under the table and doesn't answer.

"That's what I thought."

"You didn't mention what you told him." His voice is quiet and cold, but there's a tiny tremor underneath.

She snorts. "I told him to sod off."

One corner of his mouth moves upward. "He didn't look told off."

"That's because I, unlike you, know how to say things nicely."

He inclines his head in agreement. "If you're ready, I have some time today to begin Occlumency with you. Tonight I'll dine with Lucius and see what I can learn."

"Delighted." She offers her hand and he takes it, pulling her lightly to her feet. She's in an excellent mood.

They go to the front hall, which is clear and empty, and Severus casts a few wards to prevent a wayward spell hurting the wall.

He tells her how to close her mind, how it's only the sort of thing that can be practiced and not so much described.

"Grief," Severus says, "Is one of the better ways. Sincere grief shuts down the mind entirely. This can be redirected toward disabling only the memories that might contradict."

Her good mood doesn't last long under legillimency. They work through most of the afternoon, dredging up useless and upsetting things from the bottom of her mind, things she had almost forgotten. An hour in, she is fighting with Petunia, running through a teenage argument with her mother, sobbing into father's flannel shirt when she broke her leg, sitting through the terrifying night in the emergency room when her father had his heart attack and holding hands with Petunia for the first time in years-

He breaks the spell again, for what feels like the hundreth time, and pain floods her face again. She rubs her eyes.

"That grief. Try to hold onto that."

"I'm _trying._"

Neither of them are saying it, but both of them are thinking it-that this would be much easier if she could remember the loss of Harry and James. He's got an annoyed little frown on, the same frown from when she would be particularly obstinate about a piece of Dark magic or a piece of rule-breaking he wanted to do. "You have to try harder."

She raises her wand. "Just do it, Sev."

He casts the spell again and there they are, outside of the Gryffindor common room, both of them, and she is furious, absolutely livid, and saying, _save your breath! I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here._

And there's Severus, across from her, much closer than he is now, much younger as well, and the desperation in his voice, _I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just –_

_Slipped out? It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends-you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?_ And in the righteous anger, she can almost see him again, across from her, shaken by her words then and still shaken by them now, and how right she was, she was completely right in every way, she was right, and he is gaping like a fish both in front of her in the memory and in front of her now. _I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine._

_No-listen, I didn't mean-_

-_-to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus._

_Why should I be any different?_ And with a surge of triumph, the spell is weakening, she sees her opportunity, and she climbs through the portrait-hole again, and pushes back, hard, against him-

And then, a memory from Severus' mind, so unfamiliar, so alien-

_There's nothing so special about her. Nothing. Her eyes are too far apart. She's too loud. She's obnoxious. She's bossy. She too friendly, too open with everyone. She's discarded you without a second glance, and you are a fool for sitting here and-_

There is a feeling of pressure in the throat, the messy phenomenon of snot and tears shed loudly behind layers of dense silencing wards in an unfamiliar dorm room she had only been in a few times, before he was ashamed of her. The memory lives behind the green curtains around the bed and on a dirty pillowcase, fists full of sheets and anger and betrayal. A faint, traitorous voice deep inside him that he deserves every bit of this misery, every bit of this awful hole in his chest, and there is so much filling-in to be done. _Pack the wound. Stitch it shut. Heal it the long way, like the filthy half-muggle you are-_

-And he is on his knees, and she is watching him across the floor. They both come back to the present but she still sees herself as he sees her: terrifying and beautiful, pale and brilliant and victorious, always victorious, always triumphant, over everything.

There is nothing quite so vulnerable, so vicious as this sincerity, this keening remorse inside him.

"Was that," she chokes out, "Did I see-"

He stands, fast and instantaneous, and his face is white and trembling with something like rage. The tip of his wand is glowing red, then white-hot. He spins, disabling the wards with a sharp crack, and marching out of the front hall, up the stairs, to his laboratory.

If she had been any younger, any more foolish, if her headache hadn't been his fault, she might have called after him, begged for forgiveness. But she was right. She was right the whole time. His suffering doesn't change any of what he's done, then or since. That blame is his.

"What, so my memories are open season but I see a bit of yours and all the sudden-" she calls after him, following him up the stairs. She watches him move into the laboratory and follows him through.

From his bench, he snarls back, "That was private."

"So was everything _you_ saw in _my _head!"

He stands there, still and angry, glaring. He's too far away to see it, but she knows his jaw is twitching.

"Get over yourself, Severus Snape!" Lily snaps. "If you're going to storm off like an angry teenager every time I make any progress-think about it for more than a second, I threw you out of my brain and back into yours, that's _progress-_then this isn't going to work, and I'll have to train with someone else." She takes a breath, trying to calm her anger. "I don't _want_ to train with someone else, Sev, but I have to if you can't handle this."

There's a long, silent moment between them.

"You don't have to train with someone else."

"Good. Now come back down here." She sighs, rubbing her face. "We'll take a break. I'll make some tea and-oh-" Lily stops and her hand moves to her mouth. "Sev-"

He follows her gaze to the cage. The mouse-no, the transfigured spoon that they turned into a mouse-is laying on its side and laboring at breathing. It's staring at Lily. She moves to it, putting out her hand, opening the little cage and lays her hand on its side, gently stroking it. It's in pain.

"I'm sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry," she murmurs to it.

The mouse gazes up at her, takes one great shuddering breath, and then goes still.

With her wand, she turns the tiny, furry body back a spoon-but whether it's due to its time as a mouse or her own rusty transfiguration skills, the spoon has a great crack down the middle. She holds it up and out to him. "The poison works. If you're going to back out-if you're not going to try to stop this-"

He looks at her for a long moment, his face blank, closed. Finally, he blinks, and nods. "I'm with you. I'll let them know the poison is ready."


End file.
